


Saudade

by loveislouder



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 08:50:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3722767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveislouder/pseuds/loveislouder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harold wasn’t your other half and you weren’t his, because you both knew that true completion isn’t contingent on another person. Instead, you were two people who became the best versions of yourselves when you were together. / Harold visits the Giorgio De Chirico Exhibit and, a few months later, so does Grace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saudade

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JinkyO](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JinkyO/gifts).



Saudade – a Portuguese word with no English translation. It refers to a feeling of longing for someone or something absent, yearning for its return. It encapsulates a simultaneous act of looking towards the past and hoping for the future

The Giorgio De Chirico House Museum is exactly the kind of place you would love. I take my time walking through the exhibit, secretly glad that John had chosen not to accompany me. We should be here together, you and I, and since we’re not, I think I need to be alone. Everywhere I look there are reminders of you.

If I close my eyes I can pretend you are right beside me, and then I open them to the truth: you may never be beside me again. I used to let myself imagine a day when it would be safe for me to return to you. Over the years, those imaginings have faded along with my hope, but on occasional moments like this one, they come back to me. I will never forget you, and I will never stop hoping for our happy ending.

* * *

 

_“All I know is that you loved him. And he loved you back.”_

In Italy, you are greeted everywhere you go with open smiles and cheerful calls of, “Ciao, bella!” The people are as welcoming as you remember, and being surrounded by a place so rich in culture and history can almost – _almost_ – help you forget.

You’re fine until you close your eyes at night, because that’s when the things you’ve kept at bay press against your consciousness, insistent and impossible to ignore.

_“Tell me about Harold.”_

For someone who appeared to think little of kidnapping you, your abductor had been oddly civilised, and you think it is his rationality that frightens you the most. As fervently as you assured him that Harold would never break your trust, you can’t help the seed of doubt that night has sown in you. You’d asked why he was so interested in Harold, if Harold was dead. The English man deflected your question, but you didn’t miss his hesitation.

“ _Sit tight, and we’ll keep you alive.”_

You are confused merely thinking about this woman. A year ago, she’d contacted you claiming to be a children’s author, which you now see was obviously false, and the next thing you know, she’s talking to three other people who may or may not really be police officers about the best way to blow up a building.

As always, this brings you to Detective “Stills,” whose enigmatic answers only left you with more questions.

_“All I know is that you loved him. And he loved you back.”_

But did Harold really love you at all? If, as a small, scared part of you suspects, he has been alive all of these years, what does that mean?

* * *

“What about Italy?”

You look up from your copy of _Midnight’s Children_ , meeting his smile with one of your own. “What about it?”

“I thought we could go there – for our honeymoon.” The last word contains a note of wonder, as though he can scarcely believe it will be your reality.

“We haven’t even set a date for the wedding yet and you’re thinking about the honeymoon?”

His cheeks turn a little pink. “I know you haven’t been back to Italy since your junior year, and I haven’t been in a long time, either. For us to be there together would be - ”

“Perfect,” you supply.

He relaxes. “Exactly.”

* * *

You’d never gone to Italy in the end. A few days after that conversation, Harold had gone out in the morning and then there was an explosion and only thing you had left of him was your memories and the charred copy of _Sense and Sensibility_ he’d used to propose.

_“All I know is that you loved him. And he loved you back.”_

You’d had to pick yourself up then, and somehow you do it again when you move to Italy.

You’re better than you were but you’re still broken and you have to remind yourself every day – sometimes every moment – that tired does not mean weak, and broken does not mean unloveable. Sometimes it is a battle to believe that now is not forever, even though it feels like it.

You talk, because that’s supposed to help, and it does, a little. You talk to your therapist, to your friends and to your co-workers, even to your cat. The decision to see a therapist is a difficult one. You haven’t been since you were a teenager, when weekly sessions were the only chance you had to feel heard, to feel safe, to feel _sane_. Your dad had never hit you, and because it was so hard to explain the pain of wounds that leave no visible mark, you learned to keep your mouth shut and your heart guarded. Harold was the only person you let inside, and for a while, you were happier than you’d ever thought possible. For a while after that, you forget what happiness feels like.

In your youth they taught you all the tools you needed to help yourself; it seems nonsensical for you to need help again. It takes being kidnapped and moving to a different country for you to realise that having all the answers doesn’t mean knowing how to use them. It is the therapist who suggests you visit the Giorgio De Chirico Exhibit. It has been in Rome for a few months and is about to close.

Art is something you and Harold enjoyed together, and despite the fact that you’ve been to galleries alone since you lost him, this time feels different. This is a new exhibit, a new country, a new _you_. You are glad to be there, and you drink in the paintings and sculptures with enthusiasm that seems at once foreign and familiar. Is this what hope feels like?

Harold wasn’t your other half and you weren’t his, because you both knew that true completion isn’t contingent on another person. Instead, you were two people who became the best versions of yourselves when you were together.

Whether Harold has died or not, you are here. You are alive, and when you make the effort to remind yourself, that starts to feel less like a burden and more like a blessing. Maybe one day you’ll see Harold again, but you can’t waste your life waiting for the slightest possibility of maybe. You take this second chance you’ve been given with trembling, hesitant hands, slowly learning to love the life of Grace Ellsworth just as you had the life of Grace Hendricks and Harold Martin.

_“All I know is that you loved him. And he loved you back.”_

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is for JinkyO as a (very belated) thank you for 'Are You Busy?' and a continuation of our discussion about the lack of Harold/Grace fics out there. It was also slightly inspired by a post on Tumblr about what Grace would have been thinking when she saw Root in the police station. Thank you for reading.


End file.
